Sports digest: Eagles get No. 2 pick in draft from Browns – STLtoday.com
Eagles acquire No. 2 draft pick from Browns
Desperate for a franchise quarterback, the Philadelphia Eagles can get their man. Soon. The Cleveland Browns will wait for their guy.
The Eagles acquired the No. 2 pick in next week’s draft from Cleveland in exchange for five picks on Wednesday. The Browns are getting Philadelphia’s first-round pick this year (No. 8), a third-round pick (No. 77) and fourth-rounder (No. 100), plus a first-rounder in 2017 and a fourth-rounder in 2018.
Cleveland also sends a fourth-round pick in 2017 to the Eagles.
The trade allows Philadelphia to select one of the top quarterback prospects, Carson Wentz of North Dakota State or Jared Goff of California at No. 2. The Los Angeles Rams already acquired the top pick from Tennessee for a slew of picks and have indicated they will take a quarterback.
Norman becomes free agent • Josh Norman, one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks, is now an unrestricted free agent after the Carolina Panthers surprisingly rescinded their non-exclusive franchise tag offer to the All-Pro. Norman did not sign the franchise tag offer from the Panthers which would have paid him $13.9 million in 2016. Now he can sign with any team.
Tickets for game at dome on sale • Tickets for the July 23 Legends of the Dome game go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday at www.tickemaster.com. The flag football game is the brainchild of former wide receiver Issac Bruce as a way for former Rams players to thank the fans of St. Louis for the their support over the past 21 seasons. All proceeds go to charity. Kurt Warner, Orlando Pace, Aeneas Williams, and Mike Jones are among those who plan to attend. (Jim Thomas)
APR numbers show money key factor • The wealthiest schools in college sports are cashing in with high academic performances. Others are paying a stiff price for sub-par scores.
The NCAA’s latest Academic Progress Rate numbers, released Wednesday, show that schools with less money continue to play catch-up even as athletes remain in school and work toward degrees at record rates.
“I think that’s been a proven fact,” Southern University interim athletics director Roman Banks said. “When you don’t have the financial resources to put toward APR, it makes things difficult.”
Nobody understands the problem better than Banks. His school from Baton Rouge, La., had nine teams receive postseason bans for consistently underperforming in the classroom. Southern’s women’s bowling team also was penalized but avoided a postseason ban.
The men’s basketball team, which Banks coaches, is one of the school’s three programs that made the cut and now Banks is trying to clean things up. In the past year, he said the athletics department has found enough funding to create two new academic positions and two new compliance positions.
Southern is merely a symbol of the great disparity in college sports. Of the 68 Division I teams falling below the 930 cutline, 81 percent were described as “low-resource” institutions and 85 percent were listed as historically black colleges and universities including Southern and 22 of the 23 teams facing postseason bans also were HBCUs. Thirty-seven teams avoided penalties because of filters the NCAA has added to reward teams that demonstrate significant progress.
Former Syracuse star Pearl Washington dies • Dwayne “Pearl” Washington, who went from New York City playground wonder to Big East star for Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, has died. He was 52.
Washington died Wednesday of cancer, the university said.
Washington was not particularly fast, nor could he jump particularly high. Neither mattered — he simply excited fans with his amazing ball-handling skills, an uncanny court sense, elusiveness, and the ability to pull off unbelievable plays at the right time. His signature move was the crossover dribble — the “shake-and-bake” — that froze defenders, then a drive to the hoop for an easy layup past the defense’s big men. His play was instrumental in helping create the aura of greatness the Big East Conference had during its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nadal advances in Barcelona • Rafael Nadal rebounded from an early break to beat Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-2 Wednesday, advancing to the third round of the Barcelona (Spain) Open. … Defending champion Angelique Kerber dug deep and came from behind to defeat fellow German Annika Beck 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany.
Staff and wire reports
